The cognitive psychology of speech-related gesture

235 Pages·2018·15.27 MB·English

by  Pierre Feyereisen

THE COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

OF SPEECH- RELATED GESTURE
Why do we gesture when we speak? The Cognitive Psychology of Speech- Related
Gesture offers answers to this question while introducing readers to the huge
interdisciplinary field of gesture. Drawing on ideas from cognitive psychology,
this book highlights key debates in gesture research alongside advocating new
approaches to conventional thinking.
Beginning with the definition of the notion of communication, this book
explores experimental approaches to gesture production and comprehension, the
possible gestural origin of language and its implication for brain organization, and
the development of gestural communication from infancy to childhood. Through
these discussions the author presents the idea that speech- related gestures are not
just peripheral phenomena, but rather a key function of the cognitive architecture,
and should consequently be studied alongside traditional concepts in cognitive
psychology.
The Cognitive Psychology of Speech- Related Gesture offers a broad overview which
will be essential reading for all students of gesture research and language, as well
as speech therapists, teachers and communication practitioners. It will also be of
interest to anybody who is curious about why we move our bodies when we talk.
Pierre Feyereisen is Honorary Research Director of the Fund for Scientific
Research – FNRS, Psychological Sciences Research Institute at the University of
Louvain in Belgium.

THE COGNITIVE

PSYCHOLOGY OF
SPEECH- RELATED
GESTURE
Pierre Feyereisen
First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Pierre Feyereisen
The right of Pierre Feyereisen to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by
him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978- 1- 138- 70273- 8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 138- 70274- 5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 315- 20352- 2 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Out of House Publishing
CONTENTS

Preface vii

Acknowledgements x

1 Introduction: matters of terminology and of philosophy 1

What is gestural communication about? 7
Why are cognitive psychologists interested in gestural
communication? 16
Overview 22
Summary 23
Research questions 24
2 Speaking hands: inventory of forms and functions 32

Pioneers 34
Current perspectives 37
Final remarks 45
Summary 45
Research questions 46
3 Ghosts in the machine: models of gesture processing 51

Translucent architectures: gestures reveal thought 52
Information- processing models 55
Dynamical models 60
Pragmatic approaches 63
Conclusions 67
Summary 68
Research questions 68
vi Contents
4 Production mechanisms 75

Do speakers take the addressee’s perspective when they gesture? 76
Why do some spoken utterances involve gestures whereas
others do not? 82
How do spoken and gestural production cooperate? 103
Conclusions: cooperative or competitive relationships? 107
Summary 108
Research questions 108
5 The impact of gestures on speech comprehension 118

Is message comprehension influenced by the gestures
of the speaker? 120
How is visual and auditory information integrated in verbal
comprehension using electrophysiological approaches? 133
Conclusions 140
Summary 140
Research questions 141
6 Evolution and neuropsychology of gestures 148

Does human speech stem from manual skills? 151
Do gestures and speech involve the same brain regions? 154
Conclusions 164
Summary 165
Research questions 166
7 The development of gestural communication 174

How do babies learn to read minds and to communicate
their intentions? 179
What is the role of gestures in language acquisition? 188
Gesture use and atypical language development 202
General conclusions on gestural development 207
Summary 208
Research questions 208
8 Final remarks 219

Index 221
PREFACE

Why do we gesture when we speak? By attempting to answer this question, the
present book follows a previous work Gestures and speech: Psychological investigations
written with Jacques- Dominique de Lannoy (Feyereisen & de Lannoy, 1991). The
regretted sudden death of this colleague in 2001 is not the sole reason for refraining
from adding the mention “second edition” to an updated publication of a simi-
lar content. During the past 25 years, the field of gesture studies has profoundly
changed and it is necessary to revise our way of thinking in the domain. The aim of
this new book is to propose a state of the art of recent research on speech-a ccom-
panying gestures (from 1990 to 2014). The time is ripe for stepping back from the
wealth of publications available in order to identify more clearly gaps of knowledge
and lines of divergence, which should fuel forthcoming investigations.
I have been interested in gestures for many years, in fact since the beginning
of my scientific career. At first, under the supervision of Jacques- Dominique de
Lannoy, I observed self- touching gestures from a human ethological perspective.
Classical ethology describes the occurrence of seemingly irrelevant activities in
conflict situations, such as grooming behaviour in approach- avoidance conflicts (let
us imagine a shy young girl meeting an adult stranger with some worry and curios-
ity, and pulling her clothes or rubbing her nose). In an empirical study, I examined
children and adolescents in the laboratory during a spatial problem solving task (de
Lannoy, 1977; Feyereisen, 1977). In that context, self- grooming movements can be
interpreted as signs of puzzlement or embarrassment at not finding a solution, a
hypothesis already proposed by Darwin (1872). However, the frequency and dura-
tion of these movements also depend on the time devoted to other activities such as
object manipulation and speech-r elated gestures, which also involve hand use. Thus
one cannot study grooming while ignoring competing movements. In ethology,
the notion of “final common path” was proposed to refer to the central selection
viii Preface
mechanism preceding motor execution. There is a competition or a time sharing
between activities using the same pool of resources.
Post- doctoral research took another direction in the Neuropsychology Unit
then founded at Brussels by Professors Michel Meulders and Christian Laterre,
and directed by Xavier Seron. The population studied was that of brain- damaged
patients suffering from language and communication disorders while the question
posed was whether people with aphasia can compensate for their impairments
through nonverbal means or, on the contrary, suffer from a general breakdown of
communication. The theoretical framework was also quite different from ethol-
ogy. It integrated the cognitive sciences which aim at understanding the human
mind by means of various methods (Shallice & Cooper, 2011). The brain has often
been compared to a computer, i.e. as a complex system made of parts that serve
specific functions.1 Cognitive neuropsychologists are particularly concerned with
dissociations caused by brain lesions and with associations showing the common
cause underlying different symptoms. Thus they bring some elements that answer
questions about the relations that may exist between language and action, semantics
and pragmatics, cognition and emotion, among other subdivisions within the infor-
mation processing system. The neuropsychological study of speech- related gestures
sheds some light on the theoretical debates that divide the scientific community in
that domain.
Within the cognitive sciences, strong links connect different disciplines such
as neuropsychology, linguistics, psychology, artificial intelligence, to cite only a
few approaches to mental functions. Therefore, the organizational change in the
University of Louvain was not a surprise when in 1989 the Neuropsychology
Unit moved from the Faculty of Medicine to the Department of Experimental
Psychology. This transfer favoured a reinforcement of pre- existing scientific col-
laborations of neuropsychologists with the psycholinguists Jean Costermans and
Michel Hupet and facilitated contacts between scientists and undergraduate
students.
In this new context, the study of gestures followed another orientation. To
understand why people move their body when they speak, one has to consult sev-
eral chapters of handbooks on cognitive psychology, covering topics such as atten-
tion, memory, language processing, decision making, executive control and thus to
build connections between separate issues. One of the motivations underlying the
writing of Gestures and speech: Psychological investigations was to widen the research
perspectives and to show that multiple approaches to gesture use are possible, not
restricted to a single point of view. The same spirit inspires the present book aimed
at a large audience, while trying to find a delicate but correct balance between
interest in a narrowly defined issue and dispersal in the infinity of human knowl-
edge. As it is impossible to read all that has been written, to follow papers published
week after week and added to thousands already written, it is now time to conclude
and be resigned to being incomplete.
Preface ix
Note
1 See for example Churchland and Sejnowski (1992). Several scholars disagree for various
reasons and claim that the brain as a cognitive system does not work that way.
References
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